1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a color switch setting data processing apparatus for a multi-needle embroidery machine, and a stitching system employing the apparatus and, more particularly, to a color switch setting data processing apparatus making it possible to easily change the color switch setting data, and a stitching system employing the apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
A multi-needle embroidery machine has a needle bar case that is provided with a plurality of needle bars and needles, a needle bar selector mechanism for moving the needle bar case so as to set a needle bar to be used for stitching, at a stitching position, and a spool table provided with a plurality of upper threads of different colors that are led to and carried by different needles. A typical embroidery design is made up of a plurality of different component color design parts. Each component color design part is formed by the corresponding color thread. The stitch data for forming an embroidery design is stored in the order of the stitch data regarding the first component color design part to be formed, the stitch data regarding the second component color design part to be formed, the stitch data regarding the third component color design part to be formed, the stitch data regarding the fourth component color design part to be formed, the stitch data regarding the fifth component color design part to be formed, and so on.
In order to form a plurality of component color design parts of each embroidery design, it is necessary to designate a needle bar (that is, an upper thread) for each component color design part and precisely select the designated needle bars during an actual embroidery operation. The correspondence between the needle bars and the thread colors may well change, if spools on the spool table are replaced. Therefore, in preparation for an embroidery operation, an operator, while checking the needle bar ID numbers in the needle bar case and the thread colors to be used, prepares a color switch setting data card in which the stitching sequence for forming a plurality of component color design parts of each embroidery design and the needle bar ID numbers of the needle bars used for the respective component color design parts are set. The color switch setting data in the card is inputted and stored into a color switch setting data processing apparatus formed by, for example, a personal computer or the like.
During a stitch data editing operation, color switch codes for instructing a color switch and needle bar codes (or needle bar ID number data) for designating a needle bar to be used for each component color design part are written into a leading area of the stitch data about each component color design part stored in a memory. Therefore, the stitching of the component color design parts of the embroidery design is performed in a predetermined sequence based on the stitch data stored in the memory. The stitching of each component color design part is started after the needle bar (thread color) corresponding to the component color design part is selected.
The color switch setting data can be inputted from the card into the color switch setting data processing apparatus while the color switch setting data is displayed in the form of a table on a display. If there occurs a need to insert a needle bar ID number into or delete one from the color switch setting data while the color switch setting data table is displayed, the conventional color switch setting data processing apparatus does not allow an operator to insert or delete a needle bar ID number. In order to make such a change in the needle bar ID number data, the operator must also delete and re-input all the needle bar ID number data listed after the place of the number data to be inserted or deleted.
Such a data changing operation may not be very hard if the number of component color design parts is small as in a case where the embroidery design is small in size. However, in the case of a complicated embroidery design that requires several dozens of color switch operations, the re-inputting of needle bar ID number data due to the insertion or deletion of a needle bar ID number consumes considerable amounts of labor and time, thereby reducing the operation efficiency. Moreover, because there is a possibility of a mistake in re-inputting needle bar ID number data, the reliability of color switch setting data deteriorates, and it becomes necessary to re-check the needle bar ID number data after the data is re-inputted.